


History Repeated

by bluflamingo



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Savoy massacre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluflamingo/pseuds/bluflamingo
Summary: On their first mission after the massacre, Porthos loses track of Aramis





	History Repeated

**Author's Note:**

  * For [turps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/turps/gifts).



It's getting dark when Porthos finally gets the last of the new recruits settled – he knows he was never that young, but honestly, they're almost unbelievably young.

That's when he realises that something's missing, and maybe has been for a while.

He spots Edouard, one of the small number of Musketeers who didn't go to Savoy, and who, like Porthos, has been pressed into service training the new men, and heads over to where the older man is mending a tear in his cloak.

"Everyone settled?" Edouard asks when Porthos crouches at his side.

Porthos nods, ignoring the noise of the two youngest recruits who sound like they're about to get into another fight. "You seen Aramis?"

Edouard frowns, looks around. "He was supervising dinner," which is no help, Porthos saw Aramis eating the rabbit they'd hunted earlier in the day. "Maybe he went to check on the horses?"

Unlike some of the older Musketeers, Aramis doesn't hold any particular attachment to his horse beyond the practical, but their horses are tethered at the edge of their camp, offering at least a little privacy. 

"You want some help finding him?" Edouard offers. 

Porthos shakes his head, already pushing to his feet. Unlike Porthos, Edouard wasn't part of the group that rode out when the training group didn't return from Savoy, and Aramis, for all he claims he's fine, still barely speaks to the men who stayed behind. "Keep this lot from starting a riot," he says, heading away from their camp as soon as Edouard nods agreement.

*

Aramis only means to get a moment of privacy, away from the too-young faces and the memories that catch at his heels, no matter that they're still almost within sight of Paris. He can still hear their voices, though, a murmur without words that sounds too much like the panic of Musketeers under attack, the whisper of Marsac's voice in his ear as they hid in the undergrowth and prayed not to die. It's too much; he keeps walking, past their horses, into the trees at the edge of the field where they made camp, away from the sound of voices and life, and then he just keeps walking, no longer sure why, but unable to stop putting one foot in front of the other.

The evening is drawing in, almost dark under the trees. Unfamiliar shapes flicker on the edge of his vision, the scratch of branches and the sound of his own breathing – laboured breathing, though he's only walking, struggling to catch his breath, struggling to keep his footing – 

He catches his balance against a tree, pulls his hand back when he feels blood. It can't be real, he's not so lost that he doesn't know the memories are only phantoms of his own mind, but it feels real, and no matter how much he blinks, his palm is still red. He touches his head, the scar that's no longer visible, but still there, hidden under his hair. It doesn't help – there's blood, but there's always blood there when he touches it, for all that his fingers come away clean every time, nothing but the traces of the last time Marsac touched him before he left Aramis alone in the woods with their dead friends.

"You should go back," he says, just to hear a voice he knows is real. Instead, he hears Marsac, laughing when they drank too much and got spurned by the third young woman of the night; hears Jacques, who trained Aramis when he was a new Musketeer and followed the older man on missions he wasn't approved for; hears Arnould, teasing Aramis as they rode out towards Savoy and Aramis complained of the cold; hears…

"Aramis!"

… Porthos, calling his name through the gloom, when Aramis had lost all sense of time, was half-sure that he too had died in the attack, or after, had failed to get up the last time he fell, stumbling amongst the bodies hoping to find someone alive, someone still breathing, someone he could lie down next to while the two of them waited to die together, while Aramis waited for his own death to catch up to him. He's known, always, in the back of his mind, that everything after was a dream, that he couldn't really have been found in that hellhole, rescued and taken away to warmth and light and safety – taken _home_ , back to familiar, living faces, to Porthos' constant, reassuring presence, and the Captain's gruff concern for his only survivor.

*

Having not found Aramis with the horses, or anywhere within the vicinity of their camp, Porthos really hadn't needed anything more to be certain something was wrong. He gets it anyway, in snapped twigs and clear evidence that Aramis is going in circles through the trees – in the pure fact of Aramis having headed into the trees at all, when he still sleeps in Porthos' rooms more nights than not. 

It means Aramis is easy to find. Still, Porthos isn't quite prepared for how he finds his friend. Aramis is slumped, half-collapsed, against a sturdy tree, his eyes glazed and unfocused, his head leaking blood and his sleeve, Porthos sees as he gets closer, torn to reveal a gash on Aramis' fore-arm, blood trickling over his wrist and into his cupped palm. 

"Aramis," he says, very softly. Aramis isn't looking in his direction, so Porthos keeps moving towards him, reaching out with his left hand while he keeps his right close to his sword, just in case. "Hey there, brother. I was worried about you."

Aramis shakes his head, murmurs something too quietly for Porthos to make out. 

"All right. All right, Aramis, can you look at me?" He touches Aramis' uninjured arm, wraps a hand around his wrist and feels how cold Aramis' skin is. It reminds him, sudden and sharp, of finding Aramis after the massacre, chilled and barely conscious. He knows it's as much the location as anything else, but that does nothing for the shiver that rolls down his spine. "Aramis, look at me."

Aramis murmurs Porthos' name, rolling his head towards Porthos, though he's still not focussing, and Porthos isn't even certain that Aramis really knows he's there.

"That's right." He takes Aramis' hand in his and squeezes it, pleased when Aramis squeezes back. With his free hand, he finds a handkerchief. "Can I look at your head?"

He's not expecting any kind of reaction – he's definitely not expecting the way Aramis shudders, tears filling his eyes. "They're all dead," Aramis whispers, finally making eye contact with Porthos. 

Porthos knew – of course he knew – but the way Aramis' voice breaks make his own heart ache. "I know," he says. "I know, Aramis, but I'm here now. I'm right here, and I'm not going to leave you behind. I promise."

"I knew you'd come." Aramis' hand tightens on Porthos', bitten down nails sharp against Porthos' palm.

"Always," Porthos promises. He doesn't even have to think about it; he's only been a Musketeer for a little over a year, but he and Aramis had the kind of immediate bond that he hasn't felt since meeting Flea and Charon. "Can you stand?"

Aramis tips forward, forcing Porthos to catch him. He's still too thin, weeks after they found him in the woods near Savoy, but Porthos staggers with only one hand free, and they both end up on their knees. Porthos curls his free arm instinctively round Aramis, keeping him close, and it's probably the only reason he manages to catch what Aramis is saying.

"- Leave me here, don't leave me here, promise me, promise me-"

"I promise," Porthos says. Aramis doesn't even seem to hear him.

"- Promise me, be real this time, please, please, I can't stay here, Porthos please-"

"Hey." Porthos gets his hand under Aramis' chin, tipping his head forcefully up to make eye contact. "Look at me," he says, doing his best to sound like Treville in those first days after he brought Aramis home, when the Captain's voice was near to the only thing Aramis responded to at all. "I'm right here, I'm real. I came to get you. I know you don't remember right now, Aramis. We came and got you, I promise."

*

"We came and got you," Porthos says, and he sounds so sure that for a moment, Aramis believes him. It's not a lot, but it's enough still: enough for a sliver of doubt to cut through the haze of what Aramis can believe, for a moment, are just memories. 

He's not certain when he started shivering, only that he is, violently so, that Porthos' arms around him are all that's keeping him upright, and that, too, is different from before, only the vaguest sense of Porthos' voice and someone lifting him up, then nothing real until he was back in his rooms at the garrison.

"Porthos." Aramis blinks, finds himself looking at Porthos' close, worried face, recognises Porthos' thumb shifting back and forth against his cheek. "You're real."

Porthos smiles, full of relief and affection. "Always, brother. We both are."

"I don't – I'm not certain how I got here." Even as he says it, though, Aramis remembers – the camp, walking away. Promising Treville that he was well enough to go with the others, afraid of being left alone in the garrison, afraid that history would repeat and he'd be by himself again, everyone else killed while he was safe back in Paris. He tips his head back to rest against Porthos' shoulder, exhausted and aching. He wants, quite desperately, to be home again. 

"Here," Porthos says eventually, "Let me clean up your head."

"What's wrong with my head?" No memory comes to him, and fear jolts through him. 

"No, hey, don't do that. Look." Porthos takes the hand Aramis doesn’t have curled into his. "You fell, I think, or knocked into something. You're bleeding a bit, that's all."

"All right." Aramis takes a breath, looks more closely at his bleeding arm. "We should go back. I think that may need bandaging."

Porthos nods. "Good thing it doesn't need stitches. Even you can't stitch yourself."

"Well, certainly not my arm," Aramis agrees. He did once stitch a gash on his ribs, but that was in the middle of a battle, and certainly not something he plans to do again. 

Despite his shivering easing, and his breath coming more steadily, Aramis still requires Porthos to help him to his feet. They stand, Aramis leaning into Porthos as his vision greys a little. It's fully dark now, and cold, and for a moment, Aramis is certain, once again, that he sees Marsac in the shadows between the trees, that he hears the breath of someone with him who didn't die, someone else who survived and knows the horror of what they lived through.

"We should go," Porthos says quietly. 

It's not enough to push the memories entirely aside, but then, very little is. Aramis holds onto it regardless, lets it anchor him in the reality amongst the shadows. 

"Yes," he says, and together, they go.


End file.
